Nerdist » crowdfundinghttp://nerdist.com
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 21:00:15 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1#XFiles2015 and How Fan-Backed Campaigns are Redefining Hollywoodhttp://nerdist.com/xfiles2015-and-how-fan-backed-campaigns-are-redefining-hollywood/
http://nerdist.com/xfiles2015-and-how-fan-backed-campaigns-are-redefining-hollywood/#commentsWed, 25 Mar 2015 18:30:24 +0000http://nerdist.com/?p=234810Power to the nerdy people! We live in a time where fandom has a voice louder than the horns at Jericho that crumble the walls of studios as they give the greenlight and the greenbacks to multi-million dollar projects based not on an archaic model of box office and Nielsen ratings, but simply because enough people say they want to see it.

It’s one thing to launch a Kickstarter for your indie project and it explodes onto the Interweb in a viral wildfire (examples of this are numerous). But for a major studio or network to bring a mummified property back from the dead based purely on Facebook likes and retweets and shares carries implications for the future of pop culture that it makes my head go all Scanners. It certainly shows a tidal shift — instead of studios force-feeding audiences content, we now have a buffet serving us up plates of the things we want to consume, even if it was previously no longer on the menu.

And it seems to be happening more and more frequently, with exhibit A’s and B’s and C’s back-to-back-to-back in just the past few weeks.

Weeks earlier in mid-February, Neill Blomkamp’s sequel to Aliens was given the Facehugger handshake for 2017 by Twentieth Century Fox after Blomkamp simply posted concept art to his Instagram – a project that the studio was not involved with in any capacity and wasn’t even aware that the director was working on it. Those 10 photos gained thousands of “Likes,” not to mention countless shares and coverage on every major and minor movie blog. All this helped the propel the project from “Hey wouldn’t this be cool if it happened?!” to “Hey this is happening…cool!”

Late last year, it was the out-of-control social media and traditional media response that convinced Sony to move forward with the release of The Interview in select theaters after initially pulling the film from its Christmas Day opening amidst potential threats from a hacker group thought to be linked to North Korea. But like the great poet Twisted Sister once said, the good people of the good ole’ USA took a stand whilst shouting, “We’re not gonna take it!” Because ‘Murica!

The precedents for this type of fan-led crusade go back a little further in recent history. After airing for only 3 seasons on UPN/The CW, fan-beloved series Veronica Marswas kept in the air by its “Cloud Watchers.” Those self-named fans, also known as Marshmallows, went to such lengths as hiring a plane to fly over The CW offices with a banner reading “Renew Veronica Mars” (though skywriting might have been more effective methinks). They also sent 10,000 Mars Bars to the network after the show was cancelled…because when you want someone to change their mind what works better than chocolate? Finally, in 2013, WB released the Veronica Mars movie after almost 100,000 fans raised over $5 million via a Kickstarter campaign (which raised $2.5 million in just the first 24 hours) to get the film made. The Marshmallows had their day!

And maybe the shiniest example of a franchise kept flying by fandom is, of course, Firefly. During its brief broadcast of only three months on Fox in 2002, Joss Whedon’s space western amassed a small yet loyal fanbase. After cancellation was on the horizon, Browncoats soon hijacked an Internet message board started by Fox (the still-in-active-use “Original Board”) for their own purposes in the attempts to rescue the series from certain death after low ratings. This led to raising money for guerrilla marketing ads placed in Variety, a postcard writing campaign, and a fundraiser that gained over $14,000 in donations in order to purchase the series sets for 250 Navy boats. Talk about keeping the ship afloat! All this eventually convinced Universal to greenlight Serenity for the big screen with an estimated $40,000,000 budget. Sadly, it wasn’t the opening fans had hoped, only breaking even in worldwide box office. And yet the Browncoats still continue to carry the banner after all these years, eternally in a holding pattern to mobilize a Kickstarter campaign for a Serenity sequel inspired by the success of Veronica Mars (except, you know, like raising a bajillion dollars more). Though on multiple occasions their fearless leader has expressed interest in returning to the universe, the all powerful Whedon has gone on record to state he’s not quite there yet due to his commitment to Marvel and hopes for a Dr. Horrible2. What’s more, Firefly star Nathan Fillion has been tied up with commitment to the long-running Castle, stating in 2013, “it’s a complete non-Kickstarter for me.” But at least we have Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion’s Con Man, which raised 550% of its $425,000 goal (roughly $2,337,526 total) .

The list goes on: Super Troopers 2‘s just announced Indiegogo campaign, Community on Yahoo!, Arrested Development on Netflix, etc. It seems nowadays there’s a nerd flag for us all to help raise and fly, no matter what your fandom of choice may be. And as we’ve all learned from reading comic books, nothing is ever really dead and can always be brought back to life.

Now if I could just get enough people to retweet my #CopRock2015 campaign and fund that on Kickstarter, I could quitcherbitchin’. Hey, don’t mess with my pursuit of happiness!

What is one project you’d love to see a fan base bring back? And how do you see the future of this trend evolving? Let us know in the comments below, and don’t miss today’s X-Files centric episode of Nerdist News!

]]>http://nerdist.com/xfiles2015-and-how-fan-backed-campaigns-are-redefining-hollywood/feed/12Crowdfunding Campaign Is Raising Money To Pierce Moon with EVANGELION Weaponhttp://nerdist.com/crowdfunding-campaign-is-raising-money-to-pierce-moon-with-evangelion-weapon/
http://nerdist.com/crowdfunding-campaign-is-raising-money-to-pierce-moon-with-evangelion-weapon/#commentsSun, 15 Mar 2015 19:00:06 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=232648For at least a year now, Google has been sponsoring a competition organized by the X Prize Foundation–The Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, also known as Moon 2.0, has issued a challenge for teams to create and launch a privately-funded spaceflight wherein a robotic spacecraft must land on the surface of the moon and travel a specified distance while sending back pictures and data. One of the participants in the competition is a Japanese team named Hakuto, and Hakuto has an interesting addendum on their plans for the space launch.

Laughing Squid has reported that Hakuto is currently running a crowdsourcing campaign for their XPRIZE project that not only includes their rover, but also a large recreation of a weapon from the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. In the show, Rei Ayanami, the most unsettling of the Eva pilots, uses Evangelion Unit-00 to hurl a weapon know as the Spear of Longinus (you know, named after the thing that pierced Christ’s side in the Bible) into space in order to kill the angel named Arael. The spear escapes Earth’s atmosphere and was pierced into the surface of the moon. Hakuto wants to build a replica of the Spear of Longinus and pierce it into the surface of the moon during the launch of their rover. This campaign has gained over a thousand backers and is the fastest-growing crowdfunding effort in Japan…ever. Obviously, basing your science experiment on anime is a surefire way to raise money. Sounds about right to me.

The video for their campaign is entirely presented in Japanese, but even just watching the visuals of it give a pretty good idea of what their plans entail. We’ve also included a few frames from the video’s animation. Sadly, even with pairing their plans with another team in the competition in order to secure an actual launch for their drones, it seems Hakuto will not be able to launch their Spear at the moon in time to take the prize from Google’s competition, but maybe that won’t be enough to stop them from trying.

]]>http://nerdist.com/crowdfunding-campaign-is-raising-money-to-pierce-moon-with-evangelion-weapon/feed/2Pickstarter: Help Jim O’Heir Make a Super Dark Comedyhttp://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-jim-oheir-make-a-super-dark-comedy/
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-jim-oheir-make-a-super-dark-comedy/#commentsFri, 06 Mar 2015 01:00:10 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=230057Jim O’Heir has been making us laugh, say “aww,” and then laugh some more for seven seasons of NBC’s Parks and Recreation as the perpetual whipping boy Garry/Jerry/Larry/Terry Gergich/Gengurch, a.k.a. Mailman Barry. But now that that show has ended (*whimper*), we need something else to give us our fix for the actor’s brand of likable everymanness. This is why we’re really excited about a Kickstarter campaign for a film called Middle Man in which O’Heir would play a comedian who gets wrapped up in something a little bit more violent than we’re used to seeing. Check out the trailer.

That already looks pretty great, right? Who wouldn’t want to see 90 or so minutes of things like that? Silly situations, unintentional murder, bad luck all around, and a great comedy actor right in the middle of it; that’s right up everyone’s alley. The project is being helmed by director Ned Crowley who wants to make a studio-quality movie for a low budget (the dream of almost every filmmaker these days) and he needs our help to finish things.

There are only 6 Days Left as of this posting, so they need all of us to pitch in. They’re only asking for $150,000 which is a paltry sum for a feature film by anyone’s estimation, and they only need a bit more. Rewards for donating include T-shirts, signed photos, storyboards, a thank-you phone call from Jim O’Heir, DVDs, visits to the set, or an invite to the premiere. That’s a lot of great things, and they could be yours. That’s the beauty of Kickstarter.

Visit their official Middle Man Campaign Page to see more videos and read about what the movie COULD be if it gets funded. We want to see it, we think the rest of the world will want to see it, and let’s all help Jerry out to make it happen.

]]>http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-jim-oheir-make-a-super-dark-comedy/feed/1Pickstarter: Help Fund the COMIX: BEYOND THE COMIC BOOK PAGES Documentaryhttp://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-fund-the-comix-beyond-the-comic-book-pages-documentary/
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-fund-the-comix-beyond-the-comic-book-pages-documentary/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 02:00:47 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=192463Comic books, or at least the content that comes from comic books, currently dominate our popular culture. So it’s no surprise that someone out there has been working hard to document the stories of the people who made all these comics possible, the men and women who created so much legendary content over the years. Filmmaker Michael Valentine started out as just a fan, but in his own words “I have always loved comic books. About ten years ago, I had an idea to make a comic book. This idea led me to create the feature documentary film, COMIX: Beyond the Comic Book Pages which is about comic books and the phenomenon surrounding them.”

Since then, Valentine has interviewed many legendary creators for this project, including Stan Lee, Frank Miller, Neal Adams, Mark Waid, Mike Richardson of Dark Horse Comics, Marc Silvestri of Top Cow, and Todd McFarlane. In addition to the creators, Valentine has also interviewed many of the fans who have kept the hobby alive all these years through collecting and attending conventions. Although Valentine completed much of the movie himself over the past decade, he still needs funds to finally finish COMIX and release it, and has started a Kickstarter so fans can help him meet his goal of $35,000 before November 14th. If you want to help this comprehensive-looking documentary see the light of day, head on over to the Kickstarter page for COMIX: Beyond the Comic Book Pages and make your pledge. In the meantime, check out the trailer below.

]]>http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-help-fund-the-comix-beyond-the-comic-book-pages-documentary/feed/1George R.R. Martin Will Kill You GAME OF THRONES-Style for $20,000http://nerdist.com/george-r-r-martin-will-kill-you-game-of-thrones-style-for-20000/
http://nerdist.com/george-r-r-martin-will-kill-you-game-of-thrones-style-for-20000/#commentsSun, 08 Jun 2014 22:00:00 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=156011Dreams do come true — if you happen to have a spare $20,000 lying around. Because only that will give you the gruesome death you so desire from master of killing people (on paper), George R.R. Martin. For those measly 20Gs you, too, could get a direwolf head sewn onto your freshly-dead body or something equally as brutal.

The honor of dying by the pen of the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire creator is reserved for top-tier philanthropists donating to Martin’s Prizeo crowdfunding campaign to raise money for the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary. The Candy Kitchen, New Mexico (yes, that is a real place, apparently) respite for the particularly ferocious canines has long been a passion of Martin and his wife’s, and in an attempt to raise more money for the outfit, Martin has decided to auction off a bit of his murderous mind.

The winner will get to choose their character’s position in the fictional world (be they a lord, knight, king, queen, khaleesi, khal, smallfolk, wilding, maester, whore, sellsword, etc etc) and meet a death to merit the title of a particular [Insert Color Preference Here] Wedding.

Lucky for the rest of us, anyone who donates at all is automatically entered to win a tour of the wolf sanctuary, complete with dinner, conversation, and even a helicopter ride with the killer of all of the things we love (because valar morghulis). Other donation prizes include signed maps of Westeros, cookbooks of the Realm’s cuisine, scripts from the series, tickets to the season 5 premiere, and even Martin’s now-iconic hat.

So, we know that all men must die, but do we think all men will donate? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

]]>http://nerdist.com/george-r-r-martin-will-kill-you-game-of-thrones-style-for-20000/feed/6Pickstarter: Continue The Adventure With FAIRY QUEST 2: OUTCASTShttp://nerdist.com/pickstarter-continue-the-adventure-with-fairy-quest-2-outcasts/
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-continue-the-adventure-with-fairy-quest-2-outcasts/#commentsThu, 13 Feb 2014 19:00:41 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=114410Fairy tales may be as old as time, but the familiar stories are constantly being rewritten and retold with varying degrees of success. Fairy Quest offers a fresh and beautifully illustrated take on a world where fairy tale characters are forced to live out their days according to how their stories are written… or else. Paul Jenkins’ and Humberto Ramos’ adventurous story found success with its first installment, and now they’ve headed back to Kickstarter to fund the next chapter, Fairy Quest 2: Outcasts.

The narrative follows the path of two outlaws, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, as they try to escape and end the rule of the vicious Mr. Grimm. It’s a delightful all ages story with unexpected twists, engaging characters you want to befriend, and lovely art. See for yourself:

The creators had great success using crowdfunding to set the first chapter into motion almost two years ago. I don’t know that Fairy Quest would have found a home with a publisher if not for Kickstarter. Jenkins and Ramos have since granted BOOM! Studios the license to publish the first volume, and BOOM! will eventually do the same with this new installment – as long as it’s funded.

Fairy Quest 2 will follow the format of the first book with 48 pages in an oversized graphic novel. Support levels begin at $5, and the rewards include digital wallpaper, a PDF of the book, the actual graphic novel, coffee mugs, a writing seminar, and more. Head over to the Kickstarter page for more details.

]]>http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-continue-the-adventure-with-fairy-quest-2-outcasts/feed/2How an Internet Dog Meme Sent the Jamaican Bobsled Team to the Winter Olympicshttp://nerdist.com/how-an-internet-dog-meme-sent-the-jamaican-bobsled-team-to-the-winter-olympics/
http://nerdist.com/how-an-internet-dog-meme-sent-the-jamaican-bobsled-team-to-the-winter-olympics/#commentsMon, 20 Jan 2014 22:00:12 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=106655Such bobsled. What cryptocurrency. Much Jamaica. Many fast. That’s right, everyone, once again Jamaica has a bobsled team that has qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. One problem — they don’t have enough money to get there. Fortunately, the Internet heeded the call, thanks to a perfect storm of crowdfunding, Redditors, cryptocurrency, and an undying love for the inspirational 1993 classic Cool Runnings.

This year marks the first time since 2002 that Jamaica’s bobsled team qualified for the Winter Olympics. On Saturday, sled driver Winston Watts revealed to The Associated Press that although they had qualified, the Jamaican squad lacked the funds to make the trip. “Right now,” Watts said, “we’re at zero.” The Internet wasn’t about to take this lying down, and soon donations began rolling in.

The largest of the donations came from Reddit after a post called “Let’s send the Jamaican bobsled team to the Winter Olympics!” on the Dogecoin subreddit gained traction. For those of you not in the know, Dogecoin is a virtual currency, or cryptocurrency, a la Bitcoin, based on the popular Doge meme. Although they aren’t nearly as valuable as Bitcoin, Dogecoin recently became the world’s most traded virtual currency, a factor which almost certainly helped the call to action.

Dogecoin’s rabid userbase was able to raise 26.5 million Dogecoins, which they are in the process of converting to Bitcoin to convert to liquid assets. The 26.5 million Dogecoin converted to roughly 35 Bitcoins, which in turn equates to roughly $33,000 in cash. The charitable effort should pay off in spades for Dogecoin as well, as it has already generated good press for the joke currency-turned-real currency. There’s no word yet though on whether the team will wear a Dogecoin emblem on its gear.

In addition to the Doge dollars, the team also raised $23,000 via a Crowdtilt campaign and an additional $10,000 on Indiegogo, bringing the total close to $66,000 at the time of this writing. This is small change compared to what your average Olympic team might cost to send to the Olympics, but it looks like it will be more than enough to send Jamaica’s finest winter athletes to the icy wastes of Sochi. One thing is for sure though — the script for Cool Runnings 2 just wrote itself.

What do you think of all this? Are you a cryptocurrency suer? Sound off in the comments below or let me know on Twitter.

]]>http://nerdist.com/how-an-internet-dog-meme-sent-the-jamaican-bobsled-team-to-the-winter-olympics/feed/3Pickstarter Plus: Jon Schnepp on the “Death of Superman Lives”http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-plus-jon-schnepp-on-the-death-of-superman-lives/
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-plus-jon-schnepp-on-the-death-of-superman-lives/#commentsThu, 14 Feb 2013 03:00:04 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=67738Recently on Pickstarter, we recommended Jon Schnepp’s The Death of Superman Lives. The documentary plans to detail the fall of one of the most outrageous films of all time, Tim Burton’s Superman Lives. You may know Jon for his work on Metalocalypse and with Titmouse animation or his upcoming Grimm Fairy Tales. The director is rightly obsessed with getting his hands on as much information as possible about the project he thinks would have lived for the ages as the campiest and greatest Superman movie of all time. With just over three weeks left on the Kickstarter project’s funding window, we wanted to get more details from Jon about the movie, so we did what normal people do and asked.

Nerdist: Okay Jon, let’s get it straight from you. Why are you obsessed with a movie that for all intents and purposes should never have gotten as far as it did?

Jon Schnepp: Actually, I’m of the opinion that this movie should have been made. If this film was made, it would have changed the way a lot of films were done in the future (now our past), and opened up a lot more creativity in the realms of filmmaking and approaching the ideas of adaptation. Just imagine how different superhero films, and genre films in general, would have been. The ripple effect is staggering! This film is a perfect example of many other projects that were stopped after a considerable amount of work had been done, and this project especially holds a certain appeal to me, because it would have been going in a different and unique direction with a character that had been around for at that time almost 60 years. All the artwork slowly released over the last fifteen years, especially after the release of “Superman Returns,” really made me want to know more about this unmade project.

N: You’ve traditionally worked in animation and illustration; what makes you want to pursue a documentary?

JS: I’ve cut together several BTS docs in the past as well as having edited features and many TV series, and have found that, to me, making a documentary is in many ways very similar to making a narrative. It’s all about story, and successfully telling it, be it from a script with actors, props and sets, or in animated form, segmented into storyboards and radio plays and final composites. The documentary also allows interesting and unique story breakdowns, flashbacks, flash forwards, voiceover, and combinations of stills, video, film, and animation. In other words, it’s going to be very exciting and creatively rewarding to me to make this documentary now.

N: What phase of pre-production are you in?

JS: I’m still researching and setting up interviews, and am waiting on hearing back from several folks. I have the spine of the documentary completely laid out, with its beginning, middle, and end, plus lots of fun surprises. I’m approaching this story much like a private investigator, with many of the stories to be told out of sequence, intercut with both the future and the past, and to eventually add up to the “why this did not happen” at the end. Think about this documentary as a slice of various perspectives creating a whole, told with interviews and animation and recreations.

N: Has anyone involved in Superman Lives contacted you to get involved with the documentary, and who are you pursuing or hoping will sit down with you?

JS: Actually, lots of people involved in the making of Superman Lives contacted me through the Kickstarter, as well as fans who have been collecting images over the years just like me. I have gotten okays for interviews from several of the main people involved in this project, but I’m still waiting to hear back from Nicolas Cage and Tim Burton.

N: Have you heard from Warners or DC?

JS: Not yet, but I will be talking with them eventually. I am not making a negative or “slam” documentary; In fact, quite to the contrary, I’m going to be showing the creative process, from inside the studio perspective, and how projects become a reality or how they eventually transform into something else. WB and DC should be quite happy with what I’ve got planned, and I hope they will give me full access to the materials I’ll need to make this doc stand out.

N: It would seem like they were far enough along in pre-production that some behind the scenes stuff may have been shot for the film; Any chance of you getting access to that gold mine?

JS: I’m hearing lots of things, from sets to costumes, from many different people, so I’ll be putting on my fedora and getting all “archaeological” very soon.

N: How much are you watching Lost in La Mancha to prepare for this undertaking?

JS: I had already seen that film at least five times before I even thought of making this doc, and now I don’t want to see it again, because I don’t want to go through any part of that ordeal at all!

N: You’re now a Kickstarter veteran; How is crowdfunding changing the way you produce content?

JS: I love crowdfunding projects, because it removes the filter between me and my audience. I can directly communicate with the people who would want to see what I want to make, and hopefully convince them to help me make it. This is opening up so many new ways to make all types of media, as well as innovative inventions, new technologies, etc. I like the freedom I have to make exactly what I want, and deliver it to the people who already know what I have made, and are expecting that type of quality from me, but without interference. This is Hollywood 2.0, and this is part of the new media way. Alongside the internet’s viewing changes brought on by Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, we now all watch and enjoy media in micro-bursts or mega-binges, and this is all intersecting with modern filmmakers who have taken the reigns of their own career, and are working with the crowds as well as the larger corps. to re-brand and re-signal the overall viewership. ABSORB!!!!

N: How are things progressing on Grimm Fairy Tales?

JS: I learned quite a lot from running the Grimm Fairy Tales Animated Kickstarter, and successfully raising $188,000 from people who wanted to see my take on that comic property. After funding, I was able to write the script, and then go immediately into production, and make it the way I had envisioned it, with no detractors or obstacles, aside from only being able to produce 19 minutes, because that’s all the money we had to make it. It’s completely finished now, and we will be sending out the BluRay/DVDs to all the pledgers in April, after a limited release on VOD this March. If any of the readers here are going to WonderCon in Anaheim at the end of March, we will be having a few screenings there.

N: You’re one of the most knowledgeable nerds I know and gave some of the clearest explanations about the draw of cons in Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, so tell me, why DO we get so hung up on what many in the mainstream media consider trivial?

JS: I think the True Nerd has these kinds of numbers and statistics floating around in their head, like what was the first appearance of Wolverine? #180!!! Who drew it? Herb Trimpe!!! When did Saturn 3 come out? 1980!!! Who wrote the screenplay for Blade Runner? Hampton Fancher and David Peoples!!! Now when it gets down to the sweaty nerd facts like how much can the Hulk benchpress, or which way does Moondragon swing, these become stats like in baseball or football, and the heavier the sweat, the more these stats float around their beaded brows! Half-Nerds take cover, we come for you!!!

N: What other ideas are floating around in that head of yours that are going to result in me giving you my money on Kickstarter?

JS: Well, I have an animated comedy web series that is like “Thundarr on Acid” that I want to make, as well as a feature film about a magically depressed superhero. Both of these I am planning on running as Kickstarters later this year. I also have an experimental art book, and a sci-fi comic book that I’m working on, also to be crowd funded. I plan on working inside and outside of media, through large companies and through individual investors, because working in both worlds keeps me creatively alive. I know that I’m making what satisfies my creativity, as well as giving back to the people who want to experience what I make, unfiltered.

]]>http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-plus-jon-schnepp-on-the-death-of-superman-lives/feed/13Pickstarter: Death Inc, Rivals, and Whiskey Roxhttp://nerdist.com/pickstarter-death-inc-rivals-and-whiskey-rox/
http://nerdist.com/pickstarter-death-inc-rivals-and-whiskey-rox/#commentsMon, 11 Feb 2013 03:01:32 +0000http://www.nerdist.com/?p=67441This week in Pickstarter we’ve got a plague infected horde of cuteness, Rival vinyl toys from the deep, and a way to chill your drink we’ve wanted since we saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Help spread the plague in the festive and colorful Death Inc. from Ambient Studios. The polished and innovative game has you controlling a bubonic plague infected horde with sweeping “paint controls”. As more serfs and noblemen fall, your horde grows. The 17th century never looked so adorable.

In Edmonds, Oklahoma a design studio called Wheelhouse is making toys from the depths of the ocean. The Cog and the Nautilus are battling for a precious mineral under the ocean. These sleek submarine creatures look great in vinyl and would compliment any 20,000 Leagues or Cthulu collection you already have going.

Soapstone rocks that you drop in your liquor to keep it cold without watering down your scotch? Someone call the Ink and Paint Club and tell those penguins to switch their mineral providers. The phrase “on the rocks” originated in Scotland when drinkers would chill their drinks by getting cold stones from a river. Whiskey Rox plan on continuing that tradition with their new cold retaining soapstones.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about guitars, but this looks really cool. Using antique and recycled oil cans, brothers Adam and Shaun Lee are making guitars through their Bohemian Guitars. The oil can is customized for an oil, moonshine or honey label theme, and as for the guitar specs themselves, I’m actually going to leave that to the guys from Bohemian Guitars.

From the Kickstarter page:

These axes feature top quality maple necks with rosewood fingerboards. All necks have an adjustable truss rod allowing for the perfect action essential to all guitarists. Each neck has 24 frets and a scale length of roughly 26 inches. Our Boho Series of guitars feature volume and tone control knobs, chrome (add black for $6 or gold for $15) tuning machines, a rosewood bridge, and a noiseless single coil pickup resulting in a clean bluesy twang.

The moment we can get one in Matt Mira’s hands for experimentation we will. Of course with a name like Bohemian Guitars, we’ll never know if this is real life or is this just fantasy… (Kidding. They look totally legit.)

If you love Nick Offerman as much as I do then you know that he is a carpenter and wood worker. He builds things with his hands and uses those things to either build other things or use them in his daily life. Plus, he rocks a moustache better than the rest of us. He is a badass. Harrison Ford. Carpenter. Jesus Christ. Alleged Carpenter. What I’m saying is, the coolest people in the world know how to work wood, and you should be one of them. That’s where C.C. Boyce comes into the picture. C.C. is a commercial actress (she admittedly always plays the bitchy one) who is also a wood worker and who wants to teach others how to make those everyday wooden objects we use for ourselves. (As a shop class enthusiast, I still have my TV stand I built in high school in my living room.) C.C. wants to make a series of comedic woodworking instructional videos and demystify the jargon in the wood shop. (All this talk about wood and I didn’t make a single intentional penis pun. You’re welcome.)

I didn’t know how to start this paragraph without sounding like a commercial, i.e. “Tired of fumbling with both hands to take a picture on your Iphone?” or “Sick of having to waste a hand while taking pictures of something?” So I used that clever device to do it anyway and not feel guilty. But I digress. The snappgrip iPhone case allows you to lock in the grip in situations where you need or want to use your iPhone almost exclusively as a camera. The grip connects to an app through Bluetooth, so there’s no siphoning the battery on the phone. There’s also a tripod mount on the underside of the grip for stability.